Quest for the long-lost roast duck

When it comes to giving up secrets, every man has his price. For film historian Law Kar, that price is a chicken curry at a Malaysian restaurant just around the corner from the Hong Kong Film Archive in Sai Wan Ho. "If you buy me lunch, then I'll tell you everything I know - or everything I think I know," Law had promised, speaking down the phone from the archive.

Hong Kong is this year celebrating its centenary of cinema - it has been 100 years since a comedic short entitled Stealing a Roast Duck became the first locally made production in 1909. The problem is, no proof remains that the film was ever actually made.

"There is nothing left of anything produced before the second world war," Law explains, as we sit down to eat. "The Japanese melted all the film stock down to extract the nitrate, so they could use it to make bombs."

What we know about Stealing a Roast Duck is rudimentary: so rudimentary that some doubt the film ever even existed. The plot apparently followed a thief as he steals a duck from a street hawker, who then gives chase. It is believed the theatrically trained Liang Shaobo directed, using cameras borrowed from a Shanghai-based American cinema impresario named Benjamin Brodsky, and that the film starred Liang (as the thief), Wong Chun-man (the hawker) and Lai Buk-hoi (the policeman).

"When it comes to Stealing a Roast Duck, things are very general," says Law. "All the people from back then are dead, so we have to look for other sources - newspapers and things. This means that there is a lot of argument over the film. What we know about the film is just a very brief storyline, told by [film-maker] Moon Kwan, who said he saw it in California in 1917, together with a film called Zhuangzi Tests His Wife. He said it was made in 1909 and then he told this to [film historian] Yu Mo-wan in the 1960s. So this is the original source."

Of the film's participants, Lai Buk-hoi (as a producer) would go on to be the driving force behind the Hong Kong film industry for the next 50 years, starting studios and raising funds for feature films and documentaries. His son, Lai Tin-yau - now in his 70s - says he believes Stealing a Roast Duck was in fact made.

"From what I know, Brodsky funded that film," says Lai Tin-yau. "It was working on that film that ignited my father's interest in film and took my father to Shanghai to learn how to make films properly."

Not so certain is Lai Shek, also in his 70s and the son of Lai Man-wai, the man known as the Father of Hong Kong Cinema. "I would say there are more references to Zhuangzi Tests His Wife as being the first film," he says, when we meet in a Hong Kong cafe. "It was made in 1913 and my father marked that film and that year in his diary, which I still have."

And so the debate will continue. But Law, for one, seems unconcerned. Any talk about Hong Kong cinema is good talk, he says. "And 1909 is as good a place to start as any," he says.

As he downs the last of his chicken curry, Law is finally ready to reveal his own thoughts on the matter. "OK, here is my theory about how Stealing a Roast Duck might have been made - if it ever was," he says. "I think Brodsky would have come to Hong Kong with his camera, perhaps to film some scenes for a newsreel or to just shoot some scenery. Then, somehow, he met Liang Shaobo and Lai Buk-hoi, who were engaged in staging plays.

"So perhaps they just decided to shoot something, anything. And perhaps Brodsky paid them by buying them lunch afterwards. Perhaps Liang Shaobo and Lai Buk-hoi met this gweilo [foreigner] and thought, why not find out what this is about and afterwards, we can have a nice free meal. Just like I am doing today."